Page 26 of Bunker Down, Baby

Maple

Days melt into weeks like butter on skillet cornbread, and somehow, without ever really planning it, we’re not just surviving anymore.

We’re thriving.

The garden’s popping off like it’s trying to impress someone. The goat population has stabilized after the Great Chicken Escape Incident, which we still don’t talk about because Evan’s eye still twitches when someone says ‘cluck.’ The power runs clean, the solar’s humming, and no one, and I mean no one, has made it past the perimeter since Brock and Holden turned it into a goddamn fortress with motion sensors and enough firepower to make a small militia rethink their life choices.

Evan’s even figured out how to collect eggs without getting assaulted.

Dean has not.

But he can milk the cow like it owes him money, and honestly? That’s hot in a very specific, very inappropriate way I still haven’t figured out how to process without getting kicked out of a Tractor Supply.

And just when I think I’ve learned everything there is to know about these five walking orgasms I’ve hoarded like my own personal end-of-the-world starter pack, Wade does something that hits me right in the ovaries with absolutely zero warning.

I’m halfway to the barn with a tray balanced on my hip, fresh water, a little snack, something slutty in a mason jar, because I believe in hydration and rewards, when I hear it.

Low. Smooth.

A voice.

Not just humming. Not some mumbled country bullshit about trucks and heartbreak and fried catfish.

No. He’s singing.

Like, full-on crooning. That deep, rich, Southern drawl that wraps around each note like it’s stroking the syllables into submission. Like he knows exactly what his voice is doing to the air. And to my thighs. And to my fragile sense of stability.

And let me be very clear, he is not singing to an audience. He is not singing to himself. He is singing to my entire reproductive system with the precision of a man who’s done this before and liked the results.

It takes everything I have not to just drop the tray, fall to my knees in the barn dust like some thirsty little prairie bride, and shout ‘take me, cowboy, I’m ready to forget my name.’

Because that voice?

It’s wet dream incarnate. It’s sex and sunflowers and Sunday morning pancakes with a side of oh-my-god-destroy-me.

And then, as if the universe is actively trying to murder me with arousal, I get close enough to see him.

Wade. Shirtless. Sweaty. Tool belt hanging low on his hips. One hand holding a wrench, the other adjusting his hat like the filthiest Marlboro ad I’ve ever seen. And he’s just... singing. Like he doesn’t know he’s breaking the sound barrier of hot.

I stand there.

Frozen.

Mouth dry. Brain empty. Knees morally compromised.

Because apparently this is my life now. This is what I’ve built. I stole five men for the end of the world and accidentally created a daily highlight reel of pornographic Americana.

And I am not sorry.

I stand there, sweating like a sinner in church, thighs clenched tighter than the lid on a bunker-grade pickle jar, just watching him.

Wade doesn’t know I’m here. Not yet. And that’s dangerous.

Because now I’m seeing it raw. That little groove at the base of his spine when he bends over. The way the muscles in his back ripple with each breath like God hand-chiseled him out of sun-drenched labor and weaponized sweat. The way his jeans hang low, just barely containing the miracle of engineering that is his ass, like gravity itself is trying to seduce me.

And that voice. Jesus. He’s still singing. Low. Dirty. Like each note is a promise he’s already halfway fulfilled.

I think I black out for a second.

Because the next thing I know, I’m inside the barn, tray abandoned somewhere near the door like it offended me, and I’m marching straight up to him like I’ve been possessed by the ghosts of every thirsty pin-up girl who ever licked her lips at a war poster.

His back is to me, and for one brief, perverted moment, I just… watch. Let myself absorb the vision of him, shirtless and bronzed and glistening. And then I reach out, because I’m not strong enough to not, and drag my nails slowly down the line of his spine.

He freezes. But only for a second.

Then Wade turns.

Slow.

Deliberate.

That voice fades to a hum as he looks down at me, eyes warm, amused, knowing, and I swear to everything holy and unholy that I’m going to start ovulating on the spot.

“Well, hey there,” he drawls, smile tilting into something dangerous. “You bring me a snack, darlin’?”

“Maybe,” I whisper. “Might be you, though.”

He laughs. Deep and rough and full of sin. Then he takes a slow step forward. I tilt my chin up like I’m not about to melt.

“Looks like someone liked the singin’.”

“I think you summoned my soul out of my body,” I say. “And my panties down my thighs.”

He reaches out and runs a single, calloused finger down the side of my neck. “Then I guess we’re just gonna have to baptize you in sweat and hay, sweetheart.”

And then, then, the bastard tips his hat off his own head and puts it on mine.

I swear the world goes silent. Time stops.

The barn might combust from sheer female thirst.

The hat slides down low, casting a shadow over my eyes, and he moans.

“Holy hell,” he murmurs. “You wear that better than I do.”

I don’t even have time to reply. Wade’s got one hand fisted in the back of my hair, the other grabbing my ass like he owns it, and then I’m lifted, just like that. Hoisted off my feet, slammed against the barn wall, mouth stolen in a kiss so deep and possessive I think my bones dissolve on impact.

His hands roam, rough and reverent, fingers dipping under my shirt, trailing fire up my spine. “Been thinkin’ ‘bout this,” he mutters against my lips. “Every damn night since you dragged me here.”

“I didn’t drag you,” I gasp, hips grinding against him, the hat slipping slightly down my forehead. “I gently acquired you for apocalypse snuggles and agricultural superiority.”

“You cuffed me to a bed, sweetheart.”

“And now you’re gonna cuff me to your dick, so I feel like we’re even.”

He growls. Full-on growls. I don’t know what sound I make in response, but it’s probably something obscene and legally actionable in four states.

He kisses me again, hotter, hungrier, and then drops to his knees like the goddamn sex saint he is, yanking my pants down with one swift tug, still humming that same goddamn melody against my skin like he’s about to compose a new national anthem with his tongue.

And he does.

Oh God, he does.

Wade Colter drops to his knees like the floor’s the only place strong enough to hold him.

And he doesn’t just kneel.

He settles. Like worship was always part of the plan. Like dragging his tongue over my thighs is something he’s trained for.

“Hold on now,” he says softly, voice like the warm drag of flannel sheets across bare skin, “Let’s do this right.”

And then his hands are back on me, big and warm and greedy as sin, sliding up my calves, slow and patient like he’s learning me. Like he’s gonna savor the topography of my legs the same way he checks the soil before planting something vital.

I’m still wearing his hat.

God help me.

It’s low over my eyes, shadowing the barn lights, making this feel like a dream, some filthy, gorgeous, post-apocalyptic fever dream where the air smells like hay and sawdust and sex, and the only law left is do not interrupt Wade while he’s praying at the temple of your thighs.

He nudges them apart with his shoulders and groans, deep in his chest like I’m some sacred discovery he’s just unearthed from the earth he was born to till.

“Look at you,” he murmurs. “Already so wet for me, sugar. And I haven’t even sung you half the hymnal yet.”

“Hymns usually don’t involve licking,” I whisper.

Wade looks up at me from between my thighs and smiles. “You been to the right church?”

My knees damn near give out. The only thing keeping me upright is the barn wall at my back and his grip on my hips, and even that’s a shaky equation because now he’s kissing me there, soft and slow, like he’s trying to coax open a secret.

His mouth is heat and velvet, tongue teasing like he’s writing sonnets against my folds, each stroke a verse, each breath a confession. He doesn’t rush. God no. Wade eats like a man with nothing but time and appetite and the unbearable urge to make me feel.

And I do. I feel everything.

The rasp of his stubble against my inner thigh. The slick slide of his tongue as he parts me and licks deep, groaning like I taste like salvation. The way his fingers press bruises into my hips because he can’t help it, because this is him losing control, and he’s doing it for me.

“Oh my god,” I whimper, hands flying to the back of his head, gripping tight, needing something to anchor me to this planet while he wrecks me slow.

He hums. It vibrates through me.

The hat slips lower.

I think I come just from that.

And then he flattens his tongue against my clit and drags, slow and heavy, like he’s lapping honey off a spoon, and I shatter.

The orgasm hits like a wave cresting on dry earth. It rolls through me, raw and wild and wide, and I swear I see fireworks, bursting in my vision as I scream his name to the rafters of this barn like it’s a holy chant.

Wade keeps going.

Of course he does.

He’s thorough.

Gentle, now, licking through the aftershocks, tongue slow, like he’s calming a storm of his own making. And when he finally stands, when he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, smug and glowing and cocky as hell, I’m still gasping, clinging to the wall with shaking thighs and his goddamn hat tipped low on my head.

“Well,” he says, voice rough and amused and full of country-boy mischief, “Looks like that snack you brought me was real satisfying.”

I’m too busy panting to sass him.

“Should probably carry you back in,” he says, lifting me like I weigh nothing, my legs still jelly and my mind still scrambled. “Can’t have the others thinkin’ I broke their bunker queen.”

“You did break me,” I mutter against his chest, clinging to him like I’m trying to crawl back inside the experience. “And I hope it’s permanent.”

He laughs, all sweet menace and smug delight. “Next time, darlin’? I’ll leave you with bite marks.”

Wade carries me inside like I weigh nothing. Just one big, sun-kissed farm boy with strong arms and stronger intentions, his stupidly perfect hat back on his head and the memory of what he just did to me still wrecking every soft, quivering part of my insides.

He doesn’t even say anything as he sets me gently on the couch like I’m glass, but not in a fragile way, in that reverent ‘this is sacred treasure and I’d fistfight God for it’ kind of way.

I sink back with a dazed little hum, thighs still trembling, hair a wreck, shirt unbuttoned halfway to Jesus. I probably look like someone dragged me through an orgasm tornado and kissed me on the forehead after.

Wade brushes a kiss across said forehead and walks into the kitchen like a man who knows he just altered my molecular structure and is gonna casually get himself a glass of water.

The radio drones from its usual place on the counter, the voice low and crackling and halfway lost in static until one sentence punches clean through the fog of afterglow and leftover maple syrup lust.

“… and in light of the latest antiviral breakthrough and improved civil stability, martial law is expected to lift in all remaining zones by the end of the month…”

I sit up.

Like, bolt upright. Every nerve in my body says what the actual fuck.

Wade pauses mid-sip.

Dean, who I didn’t even realize was behind the couch, leans over and whispers, “Did the government just say it’s time to go back to brunch?”

And then I feel panic. Real panic. Not about the world collapsing, not about survival or safety.

But about them. About whether they’ll want to leave.

Wade turns back to me like I just dropped a match on his barn. “You… you’re not gonna let us go, right?”

It’s so pure. So earnest.

Like I’m about to wake up one day and decide to just unlock the doors, hand everyone a can of peaches and a new pair of shoes and send them skipping into the sunrise.

Dean’s already halfway through climbing over the back of the couch. “Don’t you fucking dare let this mean we go back to pants and taxes and waiting in line for cold brew.”

Evan walks in holding a bowl of fruit like a man who’s still annoyed that he missed out on the Wade worship session. “Well,” he says coolly, “It does change some things.”

Dean turns, betrayed. “Oh, shut your mouth, Doc.”

“It changes the national Pop Tart shortage,” Evan says, deadpan.

I blink at him.

Dean gasps. “You think we can get more of the cherry ones?”

“Maybe even the brown sugar cinnamon,” Evan says.

“We have to go out,” Dean says.

“No we don’t,” Brock says from the hallway, arms crossed, already looking like he’s ready to start boarding up exits. “The virus was just a test run. Society collapsed on a Tuesday. You really think that was the final act?”

Holden joins him, tightening his ponytail like a man preparing to build fortifications and emotionally distance himself from everyone except me. “We need to gather more supplies. Reinforce the fencing. This lull? It’s bait.”

“Exactly,” I say, pointing at them both. “That’s why I got all of you. The world may look better, but it’s not. It’s just catching its breath. The real end is coming.”

Dean nods solemnly. “And we’re gonna meet it with canned peaches, a fuckable matriarch, and fortified joy.”

Evan picks a strawberry out of his bowl and pops it in my mouth.

I nearly moan.

“We could use a pastry chef,” Wade offers. “If this is gonna be long-term. Just saying. A guy who can make croissants and fix a busted kitchen pipe? That’s the dream.”

“I could collect one,” I murmur, licking the juice off my lip.

“You gonna stalk him through a bakery?” Dean asks. “Please tell me you already know what brand of yeast he prefers.”

“I don’t think pastry chefs are really my style,” I say, tilting my head. “Too… flaky.”

Wade mutters something that might be a chuckle.

Brock just looks like he’s planning to take out a bakery with a sniper rifle for the Pop Tart joke alone.

“But,” I continue, thoughtfully, “We could use a construction worker. Someone to build a second outhouse. A stone one. Maybe with a mural.”

“Or a butcher,” Wade adds. “Brock eats bacon three times a day. I’m gonna have to marry a pig at this rate.”

“I don’t eat that much,” Brock mutters.

“You eat enough,” Evan says.

Dean flops down on the couch beside me, hand on my bare thigh, grin wide enough to power the backup solar grid. “Can we keep her, boys? I vote yes.”

“Unanimous,” Holden says from the doorway, arms folded, eyes unreadable but protective.

Wade just smiles that slow, warm, devastating smile of his and drops a kiss on my shoulder. “Reckon we’re already hers.”

I stretch my legs across all of them, a queen on her throne, half-naked and full of plans.

The world might be healing. The danger might be passing. But we’re not going back. Not ever. Because I didn’t just survive the apocalypse. I thrived. I built a bunker. I built a family.

And if the world dares try to take them?

Let it burn again.

We’ll be ready.